Dynamic cybersecurity protection mechanism for data storage devices

ABSTRACT

A mechanism that dynamically creates a new access policy for a set of database servers when a policy violation has been identified in a database access response issued by any database in the set. The new access policy is then propagated in real-time and instantiated across the set of database servers so as to inoculate the other database servers and pre-empt any new compromise of information based on the intruder&#39;s actions that were found to have produced the policy violation in the first instance. Thus, the approach uses a response policy violation at one database server of a set to trigger generation of a new request access policy that is then instantiated across one or more other database servers. This response policy violation-to-request access policy instantiation occurs in substantially real-time so that the intruder cannot use a prior successful access request to obtain information from other databases using a similar strategy.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Technical Field

This disclosure relates generally to securing resources in a distributedcomputing environment and, in particular, to the protection and auditingof file systems.

Background of the Related Art

Existing information security solutions often leave databases vulnerableto advanced hacking techniques and insider attacks. Indeed, databaseshave been and continue to be a primary target for external hackers andinsider attacks. This is because databases contain an organization'smost valuable information, including customer records, payment carddata, and financial results. Statistics show that hackers are skilled atusing techniques, such as cross-site scripting, to penetrate perimeterdefenses and reach the database. Existing security solutions, such asintrusion detection systems, lack the knowledge of database protocolsand structures required to detect inappropriate activities. Othersolutions that rely on native DBMS logs, such as security informationand event management (STEM) systems, do not operate in real-time, can beevaded by users with elevated privileges (which hackers often acquire),and may introduce problematic overhead. To address these issues, it isknown to provide systems to automatically monitor database transactions,and to respond in real-time to access policy violations. One such systemis IBM® InfoSphere™ Guardium®, a unified, cross-platform solution thatboth protects databases in real-time and automates compliance auditingprocesses.

While systems of this type provide significant advantages, a maliciousclient can still seek to obtain information illegitimately by takingadvantage of the fact that a database server may respond to an accessrequest (by providing all or some of the requested data in a response)while follow-on policy checking takes place with respect to that accessrequest. While in this usual circumstance the system can then issue anappropriate alert and terminate the session to that database server whena policy violation is determined to exist, the malicious client is ableto obtain at least some data; it may then repeat this access processwith other database servers to attempt to obtain further response(s).The problem is exacerbated because many enterprises often run a largenumber of database servers concurrently. By moving from one databaseserver to another (and making different request(s) at each of them), amalicious intruder can obtain legitimate database responses fromindividual database servers and then aggregate or combine thoseresponses, thereby potentially compromising information security.

BRIEF SUMMARY

A database access control system is augmented to include a protectionmechanism that dynamically instantiates an access restriction policy (orupdates an existing such policy) for each of a set of database serversand their associated storage devices in a cyber ecosystem (e.g., aparticular protection domain) upon receipt of an indication of an accessviolation at any one of the database servers (or those data storagedevices). In this manner, the protection mechanism in effect proactivelyinoculates the other data storage devices (those not subject to theoriginal attack) going forward.

According to this approach, the mechanism dynamically creates a new (ormodified, or updated) access policy for a set of database servers when apolicy violation has been identified in a database access responseissued by any database in the set. The policy violation typically isidentified by applying an existing database table extrusion rule to thedatabase access response. The new access policy is then propagated inreal-time and instantiated across the set of database servers so as toinoculate the other database servers and pre-empt any new compromise ofinformation based on the intruder's actions that were found to havetriggered the extrusion rule and produced the policy violation in thefirst instance. Thus, the approach uses a response policy violation atone database server of a set to trigger generation of a new requestaccess policy that is then instantiated across one or more otherdatabase servers. This response policy violation-to-request accesspolicy instantiation occurs in substantially real-time so that theintruder cannot use a prior successful access request to obtaininformation from other databases using a similar strategy.

The foregoing has outlined some of the more pertinent features of thedisclosed subject matter. These features should be construed to bemerely illustrative. Many other beneficial results can be attained byapplying the disclosed subject matter in a different manner or bymodifying the subject matter, as will be described below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a more complete understanding of the present invention and theadvantages thereof, reference is now made to the following descriptionstaken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 depicts an exemplary block diagram of a distributed dataprocessing environment in which exemplary aspects of the illustrativeembodiments may be implemented;

FIG. 2 is an exemplary block diagram of a data processing system inwhich exemplary aspects of the illustrative embodiments may beimplemented;

FIG. 3 depicts a known database access monitoring and auditing system;

FIG. 4 depicts an enterprise-wide embodiment of a continuous,policy-based, real-time database system and file system activity monitorplatform in which the techniques of this disclosure may be implemented;

FIG. 5 depicts an attack scenario in a known database server farmenvironment; and

FIG. 6 depicts how the technique of this disclosure mitigates the attackscenario.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF AN ILLUSTRATIVE EMBODIMENT

With reference now to the drawings and in particular with reference toFIGS. 1-2, exemplary diagrams of data processing environments areprovided in which illustrative embodiments of the disclosure may beimplemented. It should be appreciated that FIGS. 1-2 are only exemplaryand are not intended to assert or imply any limitation with regard tothe environments in which aspects or embodiments of the disclosedsubject matter may be implemented. Many modifications to the depictedenvironments may be made without departing from the spirit and scope ofthe present invention.

With reference now to the drawings, FIG. 1 depicts a pictorialrepresentation of an exemplary distributed data processing system inwhich aspects of the illustrative embodiments may be implemented.Distributed data processing system 100 may include a network ofcomputers in which aspects of the illustrative embodiments may beimplemented. The distributed data processing system 100 contains atleast one network 102, which is the medium used to provide communicationlinks between various devices and computers connected together withindistributed data processing system 100. The network 102 may includeconnections, such as wire, wireless communication links, or fiber opticcables.

In the depicted example, server 104 and server 106 are connected tonetwork 102 along with storage unit 108. In addition, clients 110, 112,and 114 are also connected to network 102. These clients 110, 112, and114 may be, for example, personal computers, network computers, or thelike. In the depicted example, server 104 provides data, such as bootfiles, operating system images, and applications to the clients 110,112, and 114. Clients 110, 112, and 114 are clients to server 104 in thedepicted example. Distributed data processing system 100 may includeadditional servers, clients, and other devices not shown.

In the depicted example, distributed data processing system 100 is theInternet with network 102 representing a worldwide collection ofnetworks and gateways that use the Transmission ControlProtocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite of protocols to communicatewith one another. At the heart of the Internet is a backbone ofhigh-speed data communication lines between major nodes or hostcomputers, consisting of thousands of commercial, governmental,educational and other computer systems that route data and messages. Ofcourse, the distributed data processing system 100 may also beimplemented to include a number of different types of networks, such asfor example, an intranet, a local area network (LAN), a wide areanetwork (WAN), or the like. As stated above, FIG. 1 is intended as anexample, not as an architectural limitation for different embodiments ofthe disclosed subject matter, and therefore, the particular elementsshown in FIG. 1 should not be considered limiting with regard to theenvironments in which the illustrative embodiments of the presentinvention may be implemented.

With reference now to FIG. 2, a block diagram of an exemplary dataprocessing system is shown in which aspects of the illustrativeembodiments may be implemented. Data processing system 200 is an exampleof a computer, such as client 110 in FIG. 1, in which computer usablecode or instructions implementing the processes for illustrativeembodiments of the disclosure may be located.

With reference now to FIG. 2, a block diagram of a data processingsystem is shown in which illustrative embodiments may be implemented.Data processing system 200 is an example of a computer, such as server104 or client 110 in FIG. 1, in which computer-usable program code orinstructions implementing the processes may be located for theillustrative embodiments. In this illustrative example, data processingsystem 200 includes communications fabric 202, which providescommunications between processor unit 204, memory 206, persistentstorage 208, communications unit 210, input/output (I/O) unit 212, anddisplay 214.

Processor unit 204 serves to execute instructions for software that maybe loaded into memory 206. Processor unit 204 may be a set of one ormore processors or may be a multi-processor core, depending on theparticular implementation. Further, processor unit 204 may beimplemented using one or more heterogeneous processor systems in which amain processor is present with secondary processors on a single chip. Asanother illustrative example, processor unit 204 may be a symmetricmulti-processor (SMP) system containing multiple processors of the sametype.

Memory 206 and persistent storage 208 are examples of storage devices. Astorage device is any piece of hardware that is capable of storinginformation either on a temporary basis and/or a permanent basis. Memory206, in these examples, may be, for example, a random access memory orany other suitable volatile or non-volatile storage device. Persistentstorage 208 may take various forms depending on the particularimplementation. For example, persistent storage 208 may contain one ormore components or devices. For example, persistent storage 208 may be ahard drive, a flash memory, a rewritable optical disk, a rewritablemagnetic tape, or some combination of the above. The media used bypersistent storage 208 also may be removable. For example, a removablehard drive may be used for persistent storage 208.

Communications unit 210, in these examples, provides for communicationswith other data processing systems or devices. In these examples,communications unit 210 is a network interface card. Communications unit210 may provide communications through the use of either or bothphysical and wireless communications links.

Input/output unit 212 allows for input and output of data with otherdevices that may be connected to data processing system 200. Forexample, input/output unit 212 may provide a connection for user inputthrough a keyboard and mouse. Further, input/output unit 212 may sendoutput to a printer. Display 214 provides a mechanism to displayinformation to a user.

Instructions for the operating system and applications or programs arelocated on persistent storage 208. These instructions may be loaded intomemory 206 for execution by processor unit 204. The processes of thedifferent embodiments may be performed by processor unit 204 usingcomputer implemented instructions, which may be located in a memory,such as memory 206. These instructions are referred to as program code,computer-usable program code, or computer-readable program code that maybe read and executed by a processor in processor unit 204. The programcode in the different embodiments may be embodied on different physicalor tangible computer-readable media, such as memory 206 or persistentstorage 208.

Program code 216 is located in a functional form on computer-readablemedia 218 that is selectively removable and may be loaded onto ortransferred to data processing system 200 for execution by processorunit 204. Program code 216 and computer-readable media 218 form computerprogram product 220 in these examples. In one example, computer-readablemedia 218 may be in a tangible form, such as, for example, an optical ormagnetic disc that is inserted or placed into a drive or other devicethat is part of persistent storage 208 for transfer onto a storagedevice, such as a hard drive that is part of persistent storage 208. Ina tangible form, computer-readable media 218 also may take the form of apersistent storage, such as a hard drive, a thumb drive, or a flashmemory that is connected to data processing system 200. The tangibleform of computer-readable media 218 is also referred to ascomputer-recordable storage media. In some instances,computer-recordable media 218 may not be removable.

Alternatively, program code 216 may be transferred to data processingsystem 200 from computer-readable media 218 through a communicationslink to communications unit 210 and/or through a connection toinput/output unit 212. The communications link and/or the connection maybe physical or wireless in the illustrative examples. Thecomputer-readable media also may take the form of non-tangible media,such as communications links or wireless transmissions containing theprogram code. The different components illustrated for data processingsystem 200 are not meant to provide architectural limitations to themanner in which different embodiments may be implemented. The differentillustrative embodiments may be implemented in a data processing systemincluding components in addition to or in place of those illustrated fordata processing system 200. Other components shown in FIG. 2 can bevaried from the illustrative examples shown. As one example, a storagedevice in data processing system 200 is any hardware apparatus that maystore data. Memory 206, persistent storage 208, and computer-readablemedia 218 are examples of storage devices in a tangible form.

In another example, a bus system may be used to implement communicationsfabric 202 and may be comprised of one or more buses, such as a systembus or an input/output bus. Of course, the bus system may be implementedusing any suitable type of architecture that provides for a transfer ofdata between different components or devices attached to the bus system.Additionally, a communications unit may include one or more devices usedto transmit and receive data, such as a modem or a network adapter.Further, a memory may be, for example, memory 206 or a cache such asfound in an interface and memory controller hub that may be present incommunications fabric 202.

Computer program code for carrying out operations of the presentinvention may be written in any combination of one or more programminglanguages, including an object-oriented programming language such asJava™, Smalltalk, C++ or the like, and conventional proceduralprogramming languages, such as the “C” programming language or similarprogramming languages. The program code may execute entirely on theuser's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alonesoftware package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remotecomputer, or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latterscenario, the remote computer may be connected to the user's computerthrough any type of network, including a local area network (LAN) or awide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an externalcomputer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet ServiceProvider).

Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the hardware inFIGS. 1-2 may vary depending on the implementation. Other internalhardware or peripheral devices, such as flash memory, equivalentnon-volatile memory, or optical disk drives and the like, may be used inaddition to or in place of the hardware depicted in FIGS. 1-2. Also, theprocesses of the illustrative embodiments may be applied to amultiprocessor data processing system, other than the symmetricmulti-processing (SMP) system mentioned previously, without departingfrom the spirit and scope of the disclosed subject matter.

As will be seen, the techniques described herein may operate inconjunction within the standard client-server paradigm such asillustrated in FIG. 1 in which client machines communicate with anInternet-accessible Web-based portal executing on a set of one or moremachines. End users operate Internet-connectable devices (e.g., desktopcomputers, notebook computers, Internet-enabled mobile devices, or thelike) that are capable of accessing and interacting with the portal.Typically, each client or server machine is a data processing systemsuch as illustrated in FIG. 2 comprising hardware and software, andthese entities communicate with one another over a network, such as theInternet, an intranet, an extranet, a private network, or any othercommunications medium or link. A data processing system typicallyincludes one or more processors, an operating system, one or moreapplications, and one or more utilities. The applications on the dataprocessing system provide native support for Web services including,without limitation, support for HTTP, SOAP, XML, WSDL, UDDI, and WSFL,among others. Information regarding SOAP, WSDL, UDDI and WSFL isavailable from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which is responsiblefor developing and maintaining these standards; further informationregarding HTTP and XML is available from Internet Engineering Task Force(IETF). Familiarity with these standards is presumed.

In a representative but non-limiting implementation, the techniquesherein are described in the context of a transaction-processing systemor environment that comprises distributed and mainframe components,working cooperatively to respond to HTTP and Web Service client end-userservice or transaction requests. Such a system or environment typicallycomprises multiple components, configured in a distributed manner. Adistributed component of a larger multi-component transaction-processingenvironment typically comprises at least a computer, operating systemplatform, applications, networking and an associated security enginethat provides distributed transaction processing functions, such asnetworking interactions with the client end-user, and identification andauthentication functions in HTTP and Web Services scenarios. Thetransaction-processing system or environment of this type typically alsoincludes a mainframe component that includes at least a computer,operating system platform, applications, networking and associatedsecurity engine that provides high performance back-end transactionprocessing and large database functionality.

Database Access Protection and Auditing

As described above, it is known to provide systems that protectdatabases in real-time, and that automate compliance auditing processes.One such commercial system is IBM® InfoSphere™ Guardium. The solutionsupports all major database platforms, enterprise applications, andoperating systems (UNIX, Linux, Windows, and z/OS), and it has beenextended to distributed systems like Hadoop and supported in the cloud.

FIG. 3 depicts a representative implementation of this known system (or“platform”) for monitoring several databases across data centers in anenterprise 300. In this embodiment, the enterprise has several datacenters 302, as well as internal financial systems 304 that are to bemonitored. This architecture typically comprises a set of appliances(hardware and software) and agents (typically software) that can beconfigured to perform various functions. Appliances typically includethe following subcategories: collectors 306, aggregators 308, and acentral manager 310. A collector 306 is an appliance that is used forreal-time capture and analysis of the database activity. An aggregator308 is an appliance that is used to reporting activity from thecollectors and to provide consolidated reporting from multiplecollectors. A central manager (CM) 310 is a specialized functionalitythat preferably is enabled on an aggregator appliance. The CM functionis used to manage and control multiple appliances in the databasemonitoring system. Agents typically include the following subcategories:a software TAP agent (S-TAP®) 312, which is installed on the databaseserver and is used to monitor and relay the observed activity to theGuardium collector appliance. An installation manager agent (GIM) 314,which is installed on the database server and is used to facilitateagent installation and the updating and configuration modification ofagents. A change audit system (CAS) agent 316, which is installed on thedatabase server and is used to capture change audit information ofconfiguration files and more on the database server. An instancediscovery agent 318, which is installed on the database server and isused to obtain database, listener, and port information.

As shown in FIG. 3, the software TAP agents 312 may also reside inremote locations, e.g., in trusted partner installations, within thecloud, or the like. Although FIG. 3 illustrates an enterprise with ascalable multi-tier architecture comprising multiple data centers(located across multiple continents), this is not a limitation. Thesystem components may be implemented within a single data center, acrossmultiple data centers that are within the same geographic region, andthe like.

A system of this type typically can be deployed in a variety ofoperational modes. Thus, for example, in a database activity monitoringmode (or in a vulnerability assessment monitoring mode), the collectors306 monitor and analyze database activity to provide continuousfine-grained auditing and reporting, real-time policy-based alerting anddatabase access controls. Typically, the central manager 310 acts as asingle point of management for the entire deployment. With the centralmanager, system administrators (or other permitted individuals) candefine enterprise-wide policies, alerts, queries and reports, installpatches, push configuration, and perform a variety of otheradministrative tasks from a single console. In addition, data frommultiple collectors can be aggregated to the aggregation server (theaggregator 308) to provide holistic views and generate enterprise-levelreports. In addition, the system enables the software TAP agent to beconfigured in various ways that can affect the overall architecture ofthe solution. Thus, for example, the software TAP agent 312 can beconfigured to relay the captured information to one collector, to two ormore collectors, to load balance the captured data between multiplecollectors, or the like. In one basic software TAP configuration option,the software TAP agent is configured to send traffic to one collectoronly. Traffic includes all of the relevant activity (access and results)that the agent observes between the client (application, user, and soon) and the database. In an alternative configuration, the software TAPagent is configured to register with multiple collectors but sendstraffic only to one collector at a time. In this configuration the agentsends all of its traffic to one collector, unless it encountersconnectivity issues to that collector that triggers a failover to asecondary collector as configured.

The above-described monitoring and auditing platform can also beextended to file systems to provide enterprise-scale monitoring andauditing of both database system and file system access. FIG. 4 depictsone such monitoring system or platform 400 that comprises agents 402,collectors 404, and at least one central manager 406. This drawingdepicts the database systems and the TAP agents as previously described.In this embodiment, file systems 408 across an enterprise (andpotentially external thereto) also are monitored to collect and storefile access data. To this end, the machines that mount the file systemsthemselves utilize software file system (FS)-TAP agents 402 for thispurpose. Whether hosted on a database system or file system, the agentscollect the access data for auditing purposes. That data is audited bythe agent according to a security policy, and the resulting audited datais sent (by the agent) to a collector 404. Collectors provide theaudited data to the central manager appliance 406. The central manager404 stores the data, enables the data to be searched, is enabled forgenerating reports on the data, and aggregates the data for permanent orsemi-permanent storage.

Typically, the central manager includes a data store and a policymanager. The policy manager may execute on a collector appliance, and itenables policy-based filtering based on one or more security policiesstored in the data store. In particular, database access policiesdictate what database(s), tables, objects, etc. are monitored by thesystem. A policy that is defined on the central manager application andpushed down to the monitored database server defines the database accessactivity that is to be monitored. The data collected by the monitoreddatabase server is returned to the central manager, where it is analyzedfor policy compliance. A monitored database server may have a particularpolicy that differs from another monitored database server, althoughtypically the database servers share many of the policies. By managingthese operations centrally, the system enables continuous, policy-based,real-time monitoring of all database access activities, includingactions by privileged users. The approach also enables the enterprise todiscover and classify all data being accessed, including sensitive data.The central manager-based approach facilitates data protectioncompliance automation on an enterprise basis. The system may alsoinclude an administrator console that includes a graphical userinterface (GUI) for initiating searches against the collected data, fordisplaying reports, and so forth. Typically, all communications amongthe components occur over secure connections and/or transport protocols.

The central manager preferably stores the configuration (the policiesthat are being implemented), as well as the collected database accessdata (sometimes referred to as the “audited” data). Typically, a policy(or “security policy”) has one or more rules that allow administrators(or “users”) to filter for specific operations, for specific objects,events, actions, or the like. Preferably, the audited data includesinformation about the users performing a particular database accessoperation, the machine wherein the database system or server resides,the particular database changes, other database constructs, and soforth. In one particular embodiment, the database access data that iscollected includes one or more of the following: object name, objectsize, data created, owner, read user, write user, user privileges andrights, permissions, changes or other modifications to the data or tofile system metadata, timestamps, and the like. Preferably, the databaseaccess data also includes one or more actions associated with theoperation, such as: read, write, execute, create, rename, delete, changeowner, permissions, properties, and the like.

The policy manager is operative to apply a particular security policy tothe audit trail data that is collected and received at the centralmanager. As noted above, the nature and type of the policy may vary.

An agent executing in a local database system typically includes aninspection engine component that runs the security policy provided bythe policy manager. The inspection engine component runs the securitypolicy as it collects and analyzes the database access activity andtraffic in real-time.

For completeness, the following are definitions for terms and phrasesdescribed above:

An “aggregation server” is an appliance to collect and merge informationfrom multiple collection servers to a single Aggregation server. A listof reports is generated.

An “administration console” is graphical interface that guides the userthrough systems administration tasks such as deployment, configuration,monitoring, starting and stopping applications, services, and resources.

The term “aggregator” refers to the process of collecting and merginginformation from multiple sources so that a complete enterprise view ofinformation may be reported.

An “alert” is a message indicating that an exception or policy ruleviolation was detected.

An “audit log” is a chronological record of system activities. Theselogs typically provide a record sufficient to permit reconstruction,review, and examination of sequence of environments and activitiessurrounding or leading to operation, procedure, or event in atransaction from inception to results.

An “audit policy” is an ordered set of rules to be applied to theobserved traffic between file system clients and servers.

An “audit trail” is a chronological record of events.

The notion of “central management” as used herein typically refers tousing at least one central manager component that is used to monitor andcontrol other units, which are referred to as managed units.

The term “classification” typically refers to discovering andclassifying sensitive data so that the system can make and enforceeffective access policy decisions.

A “classifier” is a job, consisting of a classification policy and oneor more defined data sources, used for discovering and classifyingsensitive data. A “data classifier” is a script, pattern, or group thatdefines the data to be processed by an action.

A “collector” is a set of programs, repository, and hardware thatinspects the data stream, stores information, and enables the auditing,monitoring, reporting, and alerting of database system accessactivities.

An “event” is a notable occurrence at a particular point in time.

An “exception” is a condition or event that has been triggered based onthresholds, values, or policies. An “exception rule” (policy rule)evaluates real-time exceptions returned by the server.

A “policy” is a set of rules and actions that are required to beperformed when certain events or status conditions occur in anenvironment. A policy typically represents a set of organizational rulesand the logic that the database activity monitoring system uses tomanage and that are applied to a specific managed resource as aservice-specific policy. A security policy may be specified in amachine-readable policy specification language, such as XACML. In adatabase system, a security policy typically has associated therewith aset of one or more “extrusion” rules, wherein an extrusion ruletypically is established for a particular table in a database that isprotected by the security policy. An extrusion rule evaluates datareturned by the server (i.e., after a database access request hasoccurred at the server), wherein that data typically is referred to as aresult set. Thus, for example, assume that the database access querysent by the client and is processed by access rule (e.g., “select name,SSN from cust_info”) returns the following result set: “John,”“000-00-0000” and “Jane,” “111-11-1111,” a permitted user can create anextrusion rule that processes the result set, e.g., to mask the returneddata. An extrusion rule causes the access control system to look for apattern in the result set (in this example to mask). This mechanism canbe refined by specifying an access rule for particular database objectsor procedures.

A “real-time alert” is an alert triggered by a security policy rule.

A “software TAP” is a lightweight software agent installed on a databasesystem server or system. It monitors database system access activity andforwards information about that traffic to a system appliance, which canbe deployed anywhere on the network. A particular software TAP agent isinstalled on or in association with a particular database system serverso it can monitor database system-related traffic that is local to thatdatabase system. In addition to monitoring local connections, S-TAP canbe used to monitor any network traffic that is visible from the databasesystem server on which it is installed. Thus, in an alternativeembodiment, a given software agent also can act as a collector on remotenetwork segments, where it is not practical to install a collectorappliance.

A “security policy” is a set of rules that regulate how an organizationmanages, protects, and distributes sensitive information.

With the above as background, FIG. 5 represents a known use case that isaddressed by the protection mechanism of this disclosure. Thus, and asdepicted in FIG. 5, a database server farm is shown that comprises a setof data storage devices 500, namely a first database server 502, asecond database server 504, and an n^(th) database server 506. Forconvenience, the data storage devices being managed by the databaseservers are omitted. Database servers 502, 504 and 506 share a commondatabase access policy that has been configured in a known manner andinstantiated with respect to these data storage devices. A client 508,which in this example scenario may be either a legitimate databaseclient application (as described above) or instead a malicious intruder,makes database requests to the one or more of the database servers. Inthis example, the database client access request is initiated to thefirst database server 502 and originates from a malicious source insteadof a legitimate client.

In this example, and after the client has passed an authentication (insome manner), at step (1) the client/intruder 508 sends a databaseaccess request to the first database server 502. At step (2), thedatabase server 502 returns to the requesting client a database responsethat typically includes the data initially requested by the client (orat least some of it). Typically, the client would then be expected tomake additional database access requests within the database accesssession that is now on-going. At step (3), the database access requestand the response to that request (having been intercepted by the TAPagent running locally) are copied to an analyzing engine that executesin a database server monitor 510. In a typical embodiment, the analyzingengine executes in a collector. At step (4), the analyzer engineevaluates the request and its associated response, typically by applyingone or more extrusion rule(s) that have been pre-configured as a policy.In a known manner, the analyzer may then determine that a databaseaccess violation has occurred, in which case the collector then issuesto the database server TAP agent a control signal that instructs thedatabase server to terminate the on-going session with the client 508.At step (5), the database server terminates the on-going session.

While the above-described technique provides some data protection, theintruder in this example does succeed in obtaining at least someresponse information before the session is terminated. As such, theintruder may then be able to re-start the session anew, this time againissuing another request (e.g. a next access request) to another one ofthe database server(s) in the data server farm. This request mayleverage the information already obtained in the first pass. This isstep (6). Even though the follow-on response may later be evaluated tobe suspect (and the follow-on session terminated as well), in thismanner the malicious intruder is able to obtain valid response(s) to itsdatabase access requests.

To address this situation, this disclosure augments the analyzer in amanner that is now described.

Dynamic Cyber Protection for a Set of Database Servers

Thus, and as depicted in FIG. 6, a database server farm is shown thatcomprises a set of data storage devices 600, namely a first databaseserver 602, a second database server 604, and an n^(th) database server606. For convenience, the data storage devices being managed by thedatabase servers again are omitted. Database servers 602, 604 and 606share at least one common database access policy that has beenconfigured in a known manner and instantiated with respect to these datastorage devices. A client 608, which once again may be either alegitimate database client application or instead a malicious intruder,makes database requests to the one or more of the database servers. Inthis example, the database client access request is initiated to thefirst database server 602 and originates from a malicious source insteadof a legitimate client. Although not depicted, the system alsoimplements the database server intercepting agent (the TAP agent) thatintercepts the database access request(s) and forwards them (and theirassociated responses) to the database access monitor component 610. Thedatabase access monitor component comprises an analyzer 612, whichtypically runs in the collector, as well as a policy generator module614, which typically runs in the central manager. The policy generatormodule 614 is not present in the FIG. 5 embodiment.

In this example, and once again after the client has passed anauthentication (in some manner), at step (1) the client/intruder 608sends a database access request to the first database server 602. Atstep (2), the database server 602 returns to the requesting client adata response that typically includes the data initially requested bythe client (or at least some of it). As noted above, the client wouldthen be expected to make additional database access requests within thedatabase access session that is now on-going. At step (3), the databaseaccess request and the response to that request (having been interceptedby the TAP agent) are once again copied to the analyzing engine 612 thatexecutes in a database server monitor 610. The analyzing engine has thecapability of examining the payload of the database response against oneor more extrusion rule(s) that comprise a policy. The analyzer engineevaluates the request and its associated response that were delivered bythe TAP agent against an extrusion rule. In this example scenario, andby evaluating the response payload against the extrusion rule, theanalyzer determines that a database access violation has occurred. Thus,at step (4), the collector once again then issues to the database servera control signal that instructs the database server to terminate theon-going session with the client 608. At step (5), the database serveragain terminates the on-going session to restrict the client from afurther database access, at least with respect to the session that hadbeen established.

Unlike the access request and response flow shown in FIG. 5, however,this is not the end of the process. Rather, and as depicted in FIG. 6,the output of the analyzer 612 is also supplied to the policy generator614, which as noted above typically executes in the central manager. Atstep (6), and according to this disclosure, the policy generator is thenoperative to generate a new access policy based on the particularresponse violation that has just been determined by the analyzer to haveoccurred. As used herein, generating a “new” access policy may includeone or more of: generation of an entirely new policy, modification oraugmentation of an existing policy, updating of an existing policy,enhancement of an existing policy, or otherwise.

According to this approach, the mechanism dynamically creates the newaccess policy for a set of database servers (in this example, servers604 and 606) when a policy violation has been identified in a databaseaccess response issued by any database in the set (in this example,server 602). As noted, typically the policy violation is identified byapplying an existing database table extrusion rule to the databaseaccess response. At step (7), the new access policy is then propagatedand instantiated across the set of database servers that shared theaccess policy at issue so as to inoculate the other database servers andpre-empt any new compromise of information based on the intruder'sactions that were found to have triggered the extrusion rule andproduced the policy violation in the first instance. Thus, the approachuses a response policy violation at one database server of a set totrigger generation of a new request access policy that is theninstantiated across one or more other database servers. This responsepolicy violation-to-request access policy instantiation occurs insubstantially real-time so that the intruder cannot use a priorsuccessful access request to obtain information from other databasesusing a similar strategy.

The new access policy typically differs from the original access policy(the one that has been determined to be violated) in one or moreappropriate respect(s) to identify the client (e.g., by credential, IPaddress, MAC address, etc.), the client access activity (e.g., SSNrequest, etc.), access type, activity type or characteristic, or someother property, attribute or characteristic, etc. so that subsequentaccess attempts by the client can be handled (e.g., blocked,quarantined, alerted, etc.) as per the requirements that are nowspecified by the new access policy. The particular syntax and format ofthe new access policy will depend on the implementation and the desiredaccess restriction to be imposed. Thus, in some circumstances the newaccess policy will simply block all future access attempts that areassociated with the user credential in question. In other circumstancesthe new access policy may enable the client to perform a subsequentaccess but only if one or more conditions set forth in the new accesspolicy are met with respect to the then-current database access request.The new access policy may place new restrictions (e.g., source IPaddress, destination IP address, time-of-day, or other conditions) onsubsequent access requests that must be met before the subsequent accessis permitted. In this manner, fine-grained control over these subsequentaccess requests (by the client) are then enforced proactively instead ofthe system having to only learn of the violation(s) after-the-fact.

While the preferred approach herein generates the new access policy upona determination that an extrusion rule of a policy has been violated (bya prior response), the system may require that multiple such rules (orgiven extrusion rules of an extrusion rule set) of the original accesspolicy be violated before taking this action. This variant reduces thepotential for false positives.

The approach herein does place a requirement that even legitimateclients carefully compose their database access requests, as violation(or contravention) of an extrusion rule has the effect of instantiatinga new access policy that can inhibit even legitimate access. As avariant, the system also may provide a notification or other alerting(to other systems) that the new access policy has been triggered bydatabase access activity that (although triggering a violation) doesappear to have taken place on behalf of a legitimate user.

The response policy violation-to-request access policy generation asdescribed herein typically is carried out with respect to just theaccess policy in question, e.g., as reflected in the extrusion rule thathas been triggered. In some cases, it may be desirable to respond to thedatabase access violation by updating not only the database accesspolicy that has been found to be violated, but also one or more policiesthat may relate to (or otherwise depend on) the violated policy.

The subject matter herein provides numerous advantages. The systemlearns from a violation and acts immediately to generate and propagatethe new access policy designed to address the violation. This“once-violated, block” strategy provides significant advantage,especially as the number of the database servers in the system beingmonitored increases. The approach addresses the time delay(s) that areotherwise inherent in current approaches wherein the time necessary tohold a response, analyze it (through the extrusion rules) and thenreturn a control command to terminate the session), can enable theintruder to move compromise other machines in the enterprise. Theresponse policy violation-to-access policy rewrite function providessignificant benefits because it inoculates the other database serverspromptly and efficiently, with low processing and communicationoverhead. In particular, it enables immunization of all data storagedevices within a particular cyber ecosystem based on a response (thattriggers the extrusion rule in the policy) to just a single one of thosedevices. As a consequence, an intruder to the system ends up making thesystem less accessible, in a manner analogous to how a small dose of avirus triggers an immune system to develop resistance to a known virustype. Stated another way, the approach herein in effect provides instanthardening of all data storage devices in the system based on a singleviolation at any one of the devices. The approach thus providessimultaneous protection of all servers based on an identified attackfrom just a single data response.

Generalizing, the functionality described above (in whole or in part)may be implemented as a standalone approach, e.g., a software-basedfunction executed by a processor, or it may be available as a managedservice (including as a web service via a SOAP/XML interface). Theparticular hardware and software implementation details described hereinare merely for illustrative purposes are not meant to limit the scope ofthe described subject matter.

More generally, computing devices within the context of the disclosedinvention are each a data processing system (such as shown in FIG. 2)comprising hardware and software, and these entities communicate withone another over a network, such as the Internet, an intranet, anextranet, a private network, or any other communications medium or link.The applications on the data processing system provide native supportfor Web and other known services and protocols including, withoutlimitation, support for HTTP, FTP, SMTP, SOAP, XML, WSDL, UDDI, andWSFL, among others. Information regarding SOAP, WSDL, UDDI and WSFL isavailable from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which is responsiblefor developing and maintaining these standards; further informationregarding HTTP, FTP, SMTP and XML is available from Internet EngineeringTask Force (IETF). Familiarity with these known standards and protocolsis presumed.

The scheme described herein may be implemented in or in conjunction withvarious server-side architectures including simple n-tier architectures,web portals, federated systems, and the like. As noted, the techniquesherein may be practiced in a loosely-coupled server (including a“cloud”-based) environment. The security server itself (or functionsthereof, such as the monitor process) may be hosted in the cloud.

Still more generally, the subject matter described herein can take theform of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodimentor an embodiment containing both hardware and software elements. In apreferred embodiment, the function is implemented in software, whichincludes but is not limited to firmware, resident software, microcode,and the like. Furthermore, as noted above, the central manager or agentfunctionality can take the form of a computer program product accessiblefrom a computer-usable or computer-readable medium providing programcode for use by or in connection with a computer or any instructionexecution system. For the purposes of this description, acomputer-usable or computer readable medium can be any apparatus thatcan contain or store the program for use by or in connection with theinstruction execution system, apparatus, or device. The medium can be anelectronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or asemiconductor system (or apparatus or device). Examples of acomputer-readable medium include a semiconductor or solid state memory,magnetic tape, a removable computer diskette, a random access memory(RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), a rigid magnetic disk and an opticaldisk. Current examples of optical disks include compact disk-read onlymemory (CD-ROM), compact disk-read/write (CD-R/W) and DVD. Thecomputer-readable medium is a tangible item.

The computer program product may be a product having programinstructions (or program code) to implement one or more of the describedfunctions. Those instructions or code may be stored in a computerreadable storage medium in a data processing system after beingdownloaded over a network from a remote data processing system. Or,those instructions or code may be stored in a computer readable storagemedium in a server data processing system and adapted to be downloadedover a network to a remote data processing system for use in a computerreadable storage medium within the remote system.

In a representative embodiment, the TAP and central manager componentsare implemented in a computer (which may be a special purpose computer),preferably in software executed by one or more processors. The softwareis maintained in one or more data stores or memories associated with theone or more processors, and the software may be implemented as one ormore computer programs. Collectively, this hardware and softwarecomprises the file system monitoring system described above.

While the above describes a particular order of operations performed bycertain embodiments of the invention, it should be understood that suchorder is exemplary, as alternative embodiments may perform theoperations in a different order, combine certain operations, overlapcertain operations, or the like. References in the specification to agiven embodiment indicate that the embodiment described may include aparticular feature, structure, or characteristic, but every embodimentmay not necessarily include the particular feature, structure, orcharacteristic.

Finally, while given components of the system have been describedseparately, one of ordinary skill will appreciate that some of thefunctions may be combined or shared in given instructions, programsequences, code portions, and the like.

There may be multiple collectors and more than one central manager. Aparticular central manager typically has one or more components that maybe co-located or in part distributed from one another.

The analyzer and access policy generation functions described may becombined and executed in other machines than as described herein.

The database access system software TAP technique described herein isnot limited for use with any particular database system access protocol,and it may be applied in other database system access schemes generally.

While software-based taps are preferred, the database system agent mayin the alternative be implemented using a hardware-based network tap, orspan port, to duplicate the database system access activity.

The techniques herein may also be used for file system monitoring andaccess control.

The techniques herein provide for improvements to another technology ortechnical field, namely, database systems, as well as improvements tothe functioning of distributed systems used to manage and control suchdatabase systems.

Having described our invention, what we claim is as follows:
 1. Anapparatus, comprising: a processor; computer memory holding computerprogram instructions operative in association with a database accesscontrol system, the database access control system being associated witha set of database servers that share an access policy, the computerprogram instructions comprising: program code configured to receive froma given one of the database servers a copy of a database access requestissued by a client, together with a response to that database accessrequest that was served to the client by the given one of the databaseservers; program code configured to analyze the response against theaccess policy; program code configured to automatically generate a newaccess policy upon a determination that the response includes aviolation of the access policy; and program code configured to propagatethe new access policy, in real-time, to one or more other databaseservers in the set for instantiation on the one or more other databaseservers.
 2. The apparatus as described in claim 1 wherein the programcode configured to analyze the response against the access policyexecutes an extrusion rule.
 3. The apparatus as described in claim 2wherein execution of the extrusion rule compares a payload in theresponse to a value in the extrusion rule to determine whether theviolation of the access policy has occurred.
 4. The apparatus asdescribed in claim 1 wherein the computer program instructions furtherinclude program code to issue a command to terminate a session initiatedby the client to the given one of the database servers and during whichthe response was generated.
 5. The apparatus as described in claim 1wherein the new access policy includes information that identifies theclient to the one or more other database servers.
 6. The apparatus asdescribed in claim 1 wherein the copy of the database access requestsand the response are received from a tap executing at the given one ofthe database servers, the program code to analyze is executed at acollector, and the program code to generate and propagate the new accesspolicy is executed at a central manager.
 7. The apparatus as describedin claim 1 wherein the new access policy immunizes the one or more otherdatabase servers in the set against one or more additional databaseaccess requests originated by the client.
 8. A computer program productcomprising computer program instructions on non-transitorycomputer-readable media, the computer program instructions executed by aprocessor in association with a database access control system, thedatabase access control system being associated with a set of databaseservers that share an access policy, the computer program instructionscomprising: program code configured to receive from a given one of thedatabase servers a copy of a database access request issued by a client,together with a response to that database access request that was servedto the client by the given one of the database servers; program codeconfigured to analyze the response against the access policy; programcode configured to automatically generate a new access policy upon adetermination that the response includes a violation of the accesspolicy; and program code configured to propagate the new access policy,in real-time, to one or more other database servers in the set forinstantiation on the one or more other database servers.
 9. The computerprogram product as described in claim 8 wherein the program codeconfigured to analyze the response against the access policy executes anextrusion rule.
 10. The computer program product as described in claim 9wherein execution of the extrusion rule compares a payload in theresponse to a value in the extrusion rule to determine whether theviolation of the access policy has occurred.
 11. The computer programproduct as described in claim 8 wherein the computer programinstructions further include program code to issue a command toterminate a session initiated by the client to the given one of thedatabase servers and during which the response was generated.
 12. Thecomputer program product as described in claim 8 wherein the new accesspolicy includes information that identifies the client to the one ormore other database servers.
 13. The computer program product asdescribed in claim 8 wherein the copy of the database access requestsand the response are received from a tap executing at the given one ofthe database servers, the program code to analyze is executed at acollector, and the program code to generate and propagate the new accesspolicy is executed at a central manager.
 14. The computer programproduct as described in claim 8 wherein the new access policy immunizesthe one or more other database servers in the set against one or moreadditional database access requests originated by the client.
 15. Adatabase access control system, comprising: a tap that executes inhardware in association with a database server, the database serverbeing one of a set of database servers that share an access policy; acollector that executes in hardware in association with or more taps,the collector being configured to receive from a tap at a given one ofthe database servers a copy of a database access request issued by aclient, together with a response to that database access request thatwas served to the client by the given one of the database servers, andto analyze the response against the access policy; and a manager thatexecutes in hardware in association with one or more collectors, themanager being configured to automatically generate a new access policyupon a determination that the response includes a violation of theaccess policy, and to propagate the new access policy to one or moreother database servers in the set for instantiation on the one or moreother database servers; wherein the access policy violation-to-newaccess policy generation and propagation occurs in real-time to immunizethe one or more other database servers in the set against one or moreadditional database access requests originated by the client.